The Democratic Piece

There’s a bizarre paragraph towards the end of today’s Washington Post piece, U.K. to Help Investigate Bhutto Case, that I wanted to quickly point out. The gist of the article is that Musharaf, having power-washed away his legitimacy along with the blood and evidence in the Bhutto killing, has been forced to accept a team of “investigators” (really, they’re anti-terrorism division) from Scotland Yard. The article proceeds to explain several ways that Musharaf is suspected - by the opposition and by independent organizations - of trying to engineer the elections in his favor.

The article’s author, Griff Witte, then writes:

The president said in his address Wednesday night that he wants “free, fair, transparent and peaceful elections” for the country. To help achieve that goal, he announced that army and paramilitary troops that had been deployed in many areas last week to quell the rioting would remain in place at least until the election, and perhaps afterward.

Witte does not explain this point any further, but I’m wondering how the Pakistani military forces, which are sort of linked to GENERAL Musharaf, are going to help ensure the freedom of elections. If the military presence persists, it seems that Musharaf is being presented another opportunity to interfere in the electoral process. Why doesn’t Witte address this critical issue?

I’ve been pretty quiet cause of school work, work and vacation. The Bhutto assassination, while not surprising, is obviously depressing. Some how though, this made me even more depressed.

Who is chosen to lead Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s party? Her 19-year old son and her husband. Apparently it was in Bhutto’s will that her son should take over leadership. Although her husband will act as a caretaker until he is older and finished college (he’s a student at Oxford).

This is one of the main short-comings of “democratic” politics in Pakistan. The nepotism aspect of really hampers the development of independent institutions that a stable democracy needs. The judiciary branch was beginning to establish itself as that, but that has be derailed. Real political parties need to be more than one person or one family. Otherwise they just become vehicles for patronage and corruption.

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by a suicide bomber today shortly after leaving a rally for her People’s Party of Pakistan in Rawalpindi, a military garrison town near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.  The Washington Post reports on the attack and its immediate aftermath:

Bhutto, 54, was shot at close range as she waved to supporters from the rooftop opening of a bulletproof car, witnesses said. Seconds later, a suicide bomber detonated explosives just behind Bhutto’s car. The explosion killed at least 20 people, and injured many others.

…

Bhutto was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital, where a surgeon worked in vain to save her. Thousands had gathered by the time an official emerged from the hospital to say Bhutto was dead; the announcement triggered a roar of rage and grief.

Devastated supporters smashed the glass doors of the hospital and stormed the building to try and view her lifeless body. Even as ambulances continued to arrive bearing dead and wounded from the bombing, the crowd outside the hospital tore down and burned campaign posters showing candidates from Musharraf’s party. Yelling “Musharraf is a dog,” they blamed him for Bhutto’s death.

President Bush responded to the attack in a brief statement from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, condemning the attack as a “cowardly act by murderous extremists.”

The scene in Rawalpindi has become chaotic in the wake of Bhutto’s assassination, with supporters burning vehicles and demonstrating in the streets.  Whether this unrest will spread to other cities in Pakistan remains to be seen.  So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but President Pervez Musharraf has blamed the attack on extremist Islamist forces based in the tribal region along the Afghani border.

The implications of this attack for democracy in Pakistan remain unclear.  Parliamentary elections are still scheduled for January 8th, but it remains to be seen who will take up the mantle for democracy in the remaining weeks of the campaign.  If the situation continues to destabilize, it is likely that Musharraf will reimpose martial law and postpone the elections.  We will continue to follow updates coming out of Pakistan as they unfold over the next few days.

Pakistan Update: Mere ours after being sworn in this morning to a second five-year term, President Musharraf announced that the state of emergency would be lifted on December 16th.  As reported by the New York Times:

If he goes ahead with the move, it could be an important step in Pakistan’s recent tumultuous politics, which has seen the president impose emergency rule on Nov. 3, suspending the Constitution, dismissing the Supreme Court and arresting thousands of opponents.

An important step, yes, but in which direction?  The ability of a (man formerly known as a) military dictator to suspend the rule of law, arrest the opposition (but not move against the real security threat), black out the independent media, and then end it on his own terms with no tangible consequences shouldn’t be viewed as a positive development for Pakistani politics.

As a testament to his sincerity of purpose, however, Musharraf was moved to tears by his own speech in which he pronounced: “Right now, I think the dust is settling down and everything is under control,” at the same time warning the assembled international diplomats and press:

It is indeed a historic day and an emotional day for me. This is a milestone in the transition of Pakistan to the complete essence of democracy.

Elections alone do not mean democracy… We want democracy, we want human rights, we want civil liberties but we will do it our own way.

Reject representative rule and then castigate the international community for preventing Pakistan from finding its own way to democracy?  He needs to take a look at the streets, where lawyers are still protesting, being beaten and jailed for supporting a different vision of democracy, one in which dissenting views are allowed.  

I have a feeling that Musharraf’s idea of “Pakistani democracy” looks a lot like Putin’s.

This weekend there were a few interesting stories regarding the situation in Pakistan.

On Friday the BBC noted that the newly installed Pakistani Supreme Court ruled that Musharraf reelection in October was valid. No surpise there, but apparently the decision also stated that General Musharraf will have to step down as Chief-of-Staff of the Army before being sworn in for a new term.

The NYTimes covers Nawaz Sharif’s return to Pakistan this weekend. Sharif first attempted to return back in September, but was forced back onto a plane heading back to Saudi Arabia. This is a huge blow to Musharraf who weeks before had vowed that Sharif would not be permitted to return to Pakistan. It is still unclear why this was permitted to occur, but it may be due to Musharraf’s waning influence. Perhaps the military pressured him to allow Sharif’s return so that the elections in January may appear more legitimate and coincide with Musharraf’s resignation, thus appearing to restore a facade of democracy to Pakistan and relieving international pressure.

Today’s NYTimes also had an interesting store on Pakistan’s burgeoning middle class. The story notes that Pakistan’s strong economic growth under Musharraf has resulted in a growing middle class. However, this new group has so far remained only somewhat politically engaged, but has recently grown somewhat disillusioned with the Musharraf government as corruption and political turmoil has hurt the economy. Importantly, the article notes that the middle class is also afraid of the threat of Islamic radicals, but doubt that the Musharraf government is able to handle the problem and that the US would support a new civilian regime.

If the US is losing the faith of the Pakistani middle class, we are truly losing Pakistan.

Today, Musharraf reached a new level of expertise in repression as he barricaded Benazir Bhutto in her house in Islamabad, thwarting scheduled protests with the aid of armored vehicles, dump trucks, barbed wire, tear gas, and thousands of policemen.   The sequencing of events, reports suggest, may point to a cooptation of the opposition by Musharraf; for example, though unable to organize the larger rally as planned, Bhutto was allowed to make an opposition speech later this afternoon, perhaps indicating that she was cooperating with Musharraf and his henchmen.  She was released late in the evening after being detained for hours.

Whether or not Bhutto is cooperating with Musharraf, it appears that he is clearly in complete control of the opposition.  In fact, all of these events are unfolding according not only to Musharraf’s plan but also according to the political science literature as well.  As multiple scholars have asserted, perhaps Daniel Brumberg in his work on “liberalized autocracy” most notably, Musharraf is employing a tactic which works in his favor:  giving the opposition some space to mobilize, thereby reducing its sense of urgency, muddying its objectives, stabilizing the situation, and keeping the power in his hands.  A fragmented opposition elite and a sense of helplessness and fear of repression on the part of ordinary Pakistanis are creating a situation in which most Pakistanis believe that the best choice for the future of democracy in the country–protest–is the worst choice individually and for their own families.  It will take a few brave (or foolhardy) individuals to raise the level of contention and bring the situation to a tipping point or critical mass at which repression for Musharraf becomes too costly.  Such a solution is not a policy prescription, it’s a test of human will and bravery.

It appears that President Musharraf is playing his cards exactly right in order for him to maintain his grip on power while still complying with demands (of varying intensity and credibility) from the US and other Western donor states, and the opposition movement.  In the last two days, Musharraf has announced that elections will be held in February, that restrictions on foreign media imposed on Saturday will be lifted, and that he will resign as army chief of staff very soon.  All of these promises have been made, however, without reference to specific dates.  The BBC has a good summary of events in the last few days here.

Musharraf’s promises have had two major effects:

1. They have drawn the wind from the sails of some opposition figures who claim that Musharraf is only interested in maintaining his own power at the expense of Pakistani democracy.  While they might be right (and I’m inclined to think that they are), it has suddenly become harder to rally their supporters in blatant defiance of the ban on demonstrations in place since saturday.
2. They have eased the pressure on the US and its allies to make good on their rhetorical support for democracy with genuine action.  Now that Musharraf has made vague moves toward fulfilling the conditions set out by President Bush and Secretary Rice this week for continued US support (don’t delay elections, lift emergency restrictions, and take off the uniform), there is less immediacy on the Bush administration (from Congress, the media, Europe, etc.) to withdraw aid or rhetorical solidarity from Musharraf.

While the president is walking his fine line, however, trouble is brewing in Rawalpindi.  The town, located about 30 miles from Islamabad, is scheduled to be the location of a major opposition rally (in defiance of the emergency order) tomorrow, led by former Prime Minister Bhutto.  The rally had been scheduled prior to Musharraf’s declaration of emergency rule, and was supposed to be a ‘historic welcome‘ for Bhutto as she returned from exile.  It may still be historic, but it will be far from welcoming.  Additionally, Bhutto has threatened to call out her supporters in a long march from Lahore to Ismalabad to protest the extra-constitutional rule of Musharraf. 

For now, we’ll have to wait and see what happens in Pakistan tomorrow.

Think again:

“… a considerable amount of the money the U.S. gives to Pakistan is administered not through U.S. agencies or joint U.S.-Pakistani programs. Instead, the U.S. gives Musharraf’s government about $200 million annually and his military $100 million monthly in the form of direct cash transfers. Once that money leaves the U.S. Treasury, Musharraf can do with it whatever he wants.”

Every day our tax dollars go directly to dictators to prop up their regimes. President George W. Bush speaks about freedom in bold terms, but acts with deafening silence when one of his “war on terror” buddies crack some heads. Tell me why the lawyers, journalists, judges, and civil society activists are the first to be rounded up when a state of emergency is declared because of the threat from Islamic extremists.

What a joke the president has become.

There has been much talk in the mainstream US media over the past few days about the dilemmas that face the Bush administration in the wake of Musharraf’s “extra-constitutional” emergency. The dilemma has been characterized as the tough choice between supporting a key ally in the war on terror, and undermining Musharraf only to let the country (and its nuclear arsenal) slip into the hands of Islamists. In fact, there is actually a great deal of congruence between these two supposed opposites.

This supposed dilemma actually confuses the interests of pro-democracy activists and the Islamic extremists. In fact, Islamists in Pakistan have never really questioned Musharaf’s democratic credentials. It is the Pakistani government’s military and tactical support of the US war on terrorism that they have focused on. This support is seen as unholy allegiance to the “great Satan” by an Islamic country. If this had been done by a democratically elected Bhutto, or a military coup leader like Musharraf, the rage would remain the same. Further, the support base for such extremism in the wider Pakistani population remains slim. For now.

However, this scenario could change quickly. The unrest caused by Musharraf’s anti-democratic moves creates the sort of environment where anti-government sentiments can be whipped up. There may well be a growing support base for the Islamic extremists’ agenda in the wake of the emergency. This is the nightmare scenario for the US: an extremist Islamic faction that has widespread electoral support due to Musharraf’s anti-democratic policies.

Thus, the course of action is clear: the US must stop paying lip service to democratic values and yank the financial crutches that keep Musharraf’s policies alive from under him. Mild reprimands will not suffice. It is not Musharraf that keeps US interests intact, but a leader who has Pakistan’s interests at heart; interests which are inherently opposed to those of the Islamic extremists. Only a democratic system can ensure that such a leader is brought to power. The US could do no worse than to endorse Musharraf’s rule. This would catalyze a swell of support for extremists and usher in an era of oppression for the Pakistani people and instability in the world at large.

We may find out. This could be the opening volley of the “Black Tie Revolution.”

For the second time this year the lawyers of Pakistan have demonstrated that they may be the only group ready and willing to oppose Musharraf at every turn. The Pakistani Bar Association has organized protests and demonstrations already in multiple cities around the country, something that glorified Bhutto has yet to do. The Telegraph reports:

In Lahore, the scene of the worst violence, several people have been wounded and hundreds more arrested after police used force to disperse more than 2,000 lawyers who had gathered in the High Court.

Other protests have been reported in Multan, Islamabad, and Rawalpindi. Rawalpindi is essentially a garrison town outside of Islamabad and the location of the Pakistani military government.  Multiple Supreme Court justices are under arrest after refusing to take an oath to Musharraf. Only 5 of the original 17 Supreme Court judges agreed to take the new oath. 

So far I’ve seen two accounts of government agents backing down after groups refused to comply with their orders. The NYTimes reports (emphasis mine):

Earlier, the director of the Aaj channel, Wamiq Zuberi, said a magistrate accompanied by five buses of gun-toting police officers showed up at the studios on Saturday night and tried to confiscate an outdoor broadcasting van. The magistrate did not have a warrant and the workers at the studio stood their ground, forcing the officials to leave empty-handed, Mr. Zuberi said.

And the NYTtimes in a separate story notes (emphasis mine):

The government officials ordered the editor of the newspaper, Nazeer Leghari, not to print a supplement, and police threatened to close down the plant, according to a statement issued by the Jang Group. When the newspaper’s management refused to obey, the officials withdrew, the statement said.

The  bold actions of the Pakistani lawyers and media may hopefully show that Musharraf has no clothes, so to speak. Sometimes it is the seemingly irrational acts of individuals against regimes that demonstrate to the rest of the society that opposition is possible. Let’s hope that the political parties of Pakistan will be inspired to join the demonstrations.

Why did the Musharraf government choose to declare martial law? Allegedly because extremists threatened the nation. Were these Islamic extremists? Hardly, although Musharraf and the Pakistani military have repeatedly failed to defeat rebels in the Northwest Province. Instead of the security of the Pakistani public, the impetus for the state of emergency was Musharraf’s own job security:

A close aide to General Musharraf said the Pakistani leader had decided to declare an emergency when he was told last week by a Supreme Court justice that the court would rule within days that he was ineligible to continue serving as president. The ruling would have been unanimous, according to the aide.

As noted in the Democratic Piece before, the United States was able prevent an previous attempt in early August to declare martial law when Secretary Rice made a brief, 17-minute phone call to General Musharraf. Why did the Pakistani military not balk this time? Because they know that President Bush’s freedom agenda is dead:

In Islamabad, aides to General Musharraf — who had dismissed pleas on Friday from Ms. Rice and Adm. William J. Fallon, the senior military commander in the Middle East, to avoid the state-of-emergency declaration — said they had anticipated that there would be few real consequences.

They called the American reaction “muted,” saying General Musharraf had not received phone calls of protest from Mr. Bush or other senior American officials. In unusually candid terms, they said American officials supported stability over democracy.

The Netherlands is the only country to so far announce and immediate suspension of all aid to Pakistan. The United Kingdom and the United states are merely “reviewing” their aid to the Musharraf regime. The NYTimes noted today that the US has provided more than $10 billion dollars to Pakistan, more than 90% of that going directly to support the military government (emphasis mine):

While the total dollar amount of American aid to Pakistan is unclear, a study published in August by the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated it to be “at least $10 billion in Pakistan since 9/11, excluding covert funds.” Sixty percent of that has gone to “Coalition Support Funds,” essentially direct payments to the Pakistani military, and 15 percent to purchase major weapons systems (me - again, the military). Another 15 percent has been for general budget support for the Pakistani government (me - again, the military); only 10 percent for development or humanitarian assistance.

When will our funding of authoritarianism stop?